Worker safety costs money. Negligence costs lives.

The U.S. paper industry hasn't been doing so great in recent years, but at least it's a fairly safe place to work compared with industries such as mining. This is not to say there haven't been stupid accidents in pulp and paper mills over the years. There have been too many.

Most anybody who's worked in or around a paper mill for long knows about stupid accidents, and many have witnessed some up close. I personally lost a close relative and good friend in a paper mill accident, and during my short period working in a mill witnessed two other fatalities, one involving an employee on his last work day before full retirement.

But nothing in the paper industry approaches the stupidity of what happened at the Sago Mine near Tallmansville, West Virginia, the first work day of this year, or the Quecreek Mine in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, in the summer of 2002. In both cases, groups of “lost” miners were trapped 260 ft and 240 ft., respectively, below ground. Lost, in the sense that those above ground had no idea where in hell (literally) they were, until hearing “tapping noises” at Quecreek and eventually finding 12 bodies and one severely injured survivor at Sago 42 hours after the fatal explosion there.

We're able to communicate with a five-watt transmitter on a space probe many millions of miles outside our solar system, and navigate a vehicle across the surface of Mars using similar low wattage transmitters. We've been mapping Mars and other planets using faint radio signals for years. Why can't miners be furnished radio devices to communicate with the sunlit world 1/20th of a mile away? It's hard to believe they can't at least be tracked while they're down there.

That question has been asked by many people in recent weeks. The immediate problem, of course, is that VHF radio signals traditionally used in above ground communications can't effectively penetrate rock, and this includes cell phones. Losing a radio signal while driving through a tunnel illustrates that. But technology is available for communications in mines, and has been for some time. It's a matter of cost.

Leaky feeder technology, for example, employs a cable network antenna system to radiate or “leak” signals throughout a mine. Wireless transmitters are then used to communicate both ways along the cable. These systems can be used for voice and data communications, or even video networks, allowing those above to see real time what's happening below.

PED (Personal Emergency Device) systems are also being used in other areas of the world, especially in Australia, for below ground communications and tracking. Ultra low frequency signals from these devices are able to penetrate rock for paging and tracking applications. Used with PEDs, an encoded tag worn by a miner allows an external GPS device to track his exact location at all times.

Such communication devices are now widely used around the world. But in the U.S., OSHA and the Mine Safety and Health Administration of the U.S. Dept. of Labor do not mandate their use—for whatever reason. Thus, workers in many U.S. mines have to communicate by primitively tapping on the walls, pipes, or rails.

Just how costly can a cable antenna network and a dozen or so portable transceivers be? OSHA has been “all over” the pulp and paper industry for many years, and paper companies have spent millions to bring mills up to the best world safety standards and keep them there. Today's paper mills in this country are significantly safer that their counterparts of 30 - 40 years ago, as are nuclear and traditional power plants, petroleum refineries, etc.

The coal mining industry produces a product in big demand these days. U.S. coal reserves reportedly exceed (in total energy supply capacity) that of all Middle East oil reserves combined. U.S. coal mining operations, unlike pulp and paper, should be doing a booming and highly profitable business. There's no apparent reason—or excuse—for not installing the latest communications technology in every mine in this country. And there's no excuse, either, for OSHA allowing U.S. mines to operate below third world standards. It would never let the paper industry get away with that kind of negligence, regardless of costs.

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